"It feels like we moved a step forward and a little closer to each other .." said one of the teachers who attended the meeting with the students at the school I have been working with. We had a joint meeting where we discussed increasing pupils' participation and influence at school to reach further in our development process.

This first meeting with the students is a continuation of project I am involved in. The entire staff estimated their own efforts and labor with "Check Your School"- tool. Together we chose three areas to focus on - pupil participation and influence is one of them..

We had planned to start the meeting with a short film about participation and influence published by the Swedish National Agency for Education. It was the start that led us to discussions about the school's own current situation and how students and teachers together can find ways to increase participation and influence - from a democratic perspective and also from the student's own learning.

Before we parted, we all agreed that meeting was a success! We plan to continue the process with follow-up meetings to discuss student and teacher participation next school year.​Have a nice weekend!Arja